alex is 6 months old already!  he has changed so much in the past few months.  his hair is coming in, he is smiling, and he is sitting up.  it was so cute how he was absolutely enthralled with the beautiful fall leaves.

we love shooting for our state magazine!  especially when it features good eats in our very own tiny town of madison.  brad and ryder just “happened” to be at bob’s restaurant during my shoot.  they are sitting in the rockers outside of bob’s.   ; )

check out the november issue for our story about bob’s and the beautiful photo essay about the blessing of the hounds, by our friend and amazing photographer, stacey haines.

stacey shot this gorgeous cover!

katherine and grant and their adorable pup, reagan, met me in charlotte for their loveshoot.  i love all of the fun colors in their photos!

their wedding at duke chapel and reception at ferrington is going to be a-mazing!  i can’t wait to work with this super couple on their big day.

what a cute dog!

ah, charleston, one of the most romantic cities in the world!

courtney and dan celebrated their big day in the heart of downtown.  the ceremony was at the gorgeous french huguenot church and the reception was at hibernian hall.

design & flowers: ooh events & out of hand

cake: d lish

the band:  michel jons band

good eats:  cru catering

love this shoe shot!

the rain storm that blew through made for some gorgeous lighting!

this is one of my favorite shots ever.  it is so simple and clean and sweet!

congrats courntey and dan!

warning:  prepare for a mega post!

dianne and mike had an awesome wedding.  i will just let the pictures do the talking for this super fun and fab couple!

the first look

the girls

the boys

the clintons band was AWESOME!  i feel the need for more cowbell!

thanks again to the amazing tania lezak for second shooting!

here are some gorgeous shots that she took during our trip.

and finally here are a few of my fun shots from glacier national park.

me and my sweet mommy!

tania and i jump for joy.

a funky fish-eye shot.

i was a little scared of bears in the park, but luckily bears can’t tell that a person on a horse is not just one giant animal, so they usually leave people on horseback alone.  we had a great time on our trail ride through the park, but unfortunately we were not allowed to bring our cameras.  : (

i had the best time at alexis and jack’s super fun wedding!

alexis is my cousin.  when i heard that jack wanted to wear a hawaiian shirt, ride in to the ceremony on a tandem bike, and have everyone sport solo staches i knew he was going to fit right in with our family.  ; )  well, jack did not get all of his wedding wishes, but he did get a lot of them!

a beautiful natural setting (pine lake pavillion), simple but elegant decor, good beer, cobbler, great music and mustaches….who could ask for more?

the first look at elon

one of my favorite groomsmen photos ever!

the girls rockin the “days of the week mustache kit”.

the mustaches make it happen.  (disclaimer:  you will see several shots of a a really adorable 6 year old in the following photos.  liza kept jumping in front of my camera!  a proud momma can’t edit out her own little cuties photos!)

alexis’ brother painted their fingerprint tree.  he and his wife lydia (who got married earlier this summer) also made alexis and jack their own monogrammed corn hole set.  the take-aways for the guests were socks with mustaches on them and razors for all of the guys who grew mustaches just for alexis and jack’s wedding!

i love big sky country!

while i was in missoula to photograph dianne and mikes gorgeous ranch style wedding (soon to come) i took a little side trip to glacier national park. miss lucy came all the way from portland, oregon to meet me in glacier for her senior portraits.  i was freaking out the whole way to the shoot because it was snowing and then raining.  we worked the many glaciers lodge as much as we could and thankfully it stopped raining for about 20 minutes.  we ran outside and did a power shoot!

thanks to tania lezak for shooting the montana tour with me and being an awesome travel partner!

here a “few” of my favorites….it was hard to not blog them all!

as part of our rain contingency plan, we hopped into the vintage tour buses that tour the park.  ; )

serious…

or laughing…which do you like better?  i could not decide! (this was taken with the 15mm that i rented for the trip.  love it!  lensprotogo is a great place to rent lenses.)

good luck on your senior year lucy!

whew, it has been a crazy few weeks.

1.  i have survived 3 weeks without child care and trying to work with a 6 year old and a 1 year old as my “assistants”.  i am happy to report that eliza and ryder and i are all happy and settling into our new schedules.  liza is LOVING first grade, ryder is having so much fun with his new friends and teachers at school, and i finally feel like i can get more accomplished in a day than just getting dressed!

2. i had a complete technology hex vexing me for a few weeks.   we were without communication to the outside world for over 3 weeks!  first, we had lightning zap our satellite internet.  there were so many troubles and charges to repair our dish through hughes net that i canceled my service.  i had to find a new internet provider to support my uploading and downloading habit out here in the boonies and finally settled on verizon wireless.  during this change i also could not use my iphone from home because, alas, i do not have cell phone service at my house!  i just posted on facebook that if you really needed me to send a carrier pigeon or send a smoke signal!

then on top of all of this my mac book went down.  luckily i had 150 days left in my extended apple care plan, but i had to bring her (my computer) in to the apple store two times (one time i was there with a 1 year old, a 5 year old and a 6 year old for 2 hours!  yeah, that was fun!).  ultimately, they had to send my baby off to the mac doctor and i got almost a completely new computer back.  however, i was told that time machine would save all of my applications and files and this was not the case.  it saved my files, but not all of my software.  namely photoshop.  of course, i can no longer find my original copy of photoshop 7, just the upgrades, so $750 bucks later i am now using photoshop 5, yea!  but, the saga continues….i could not download photoshop on my wireless internet provider, so i had to wait until i got the the hotel in montana to finally get photoshop.  i am still working on getting all of the kinks out of my other software, but i finally feel like life is getting back on track which is a good thing because at one point i was fantasizing about going to montana and just walking out into the woods and living like a hermit and completely without technology!

3.  preparing for the busy season.  the good thing about being unable to use my computer or phone was that i was basically unplugged for the 3 weeks that i had the kids at home by myself.  we had a wonderful time just taking it easy.  our lives are so busy and overbooked that i think we all really enjoyed just being home together.  now i am taking a big breath and getting myself ready for a VERY busy season.  i have 6 out of town trips between now and november 7th.  this winter i look forward to some “hermit” time at home hibernating with my family.  hopefully this time i will not need a technology hex to make me slow down and BREATHE!

-sara

here are some serene images that i took on a beautiful hike in rattlesnake park in missoula.  being around all of that big sky and natural beauty really helped get me recharged and ready to go!

a big thank you to all of our clients who are waiting to see their photos.  we appreciate your patience.  ; )

sit back, get comfy and get ready for a long blog post.  what can i say?  i am a sucker for a beautiful outdoor wedding with a brazilian twist and a super cool bride and groom!

jana and alex tied the knot at the gorgeous rockwood manor in dublin, virginia.

jana and alex are moving to brazil!  she had brazilian flags painted onto the bottom of her shoes and alex’s suspenders were flags too.  all of the girls had 80’s retro shades-fun!

jana’s uncle drove his sweet vintage car to the wedding.  we took a little cruise around the farm for fun.

and the award for best solo performance goes to…..the groom.  alex has some killer michael jackson moves.

good luck in brazil!!!

i had a great time shooting in a new location with the awesome bush family! this was a special session because their beloved nanny, who has been with them for 7 years, is moving.  i thought it was so nice that the family wanted to send their nanny off with some fun photos.